Introduction
The efficacies of psychotherapies differ according to the type of psychotherapy employed. Hence, this assessment seeks to establish if psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy have different efficacies in the treatment of anxiety.
Research Question
Does psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy have different efficacies in alleviating anxiety among patients?
Hypotheses
- H0: The efficacies of psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in alleviating anxiety among patients have no significant differences.
The null hypothesis assumes that the efficacies of psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are the same in that psychotherapists can use either of them in treating anxiety among patients. According to Rubin (2012), the null hypothesis assumes that significant differences do not exist between the descriptive statistics of the two variables.
- H1: The efficacies of psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in alleviating anxiety among patients have significant differences.
The assumption in the alternative hypothesis is that psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are unique therapies that have different efficacies.
Variables
The independent variable in the study comprises the two treatment groups of patients, namely, the group that received psychoanalysis therapy and the group that received cognitive behavioral therapy. The treatment groups’ attributes are categorical and discrete for the type of therapy classifies them into psychoanalysis therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy groups. Regarding the scale of measurement, the independent variable, treatment groups, has a nominal scale.
Comparatively, the dependent variable is anxiety scores, which range from zero to 100. The Standardized Anxiety Scale Test (SAST) measures anxiety and gives it quantitative and continuous attributes. The scale of measurement of anxiety is interval because it is an arbitrary scale, which allows comparison of anxiety among patients after undergoing different psychotherapies.
Descriptive Statistics
In the study, 30 patients participated, where 15 were assigned to psychoanalysis therapy, and the remaining15 were assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy. The study used SAST as an anxiety scale in measuring the anxiety level after six weeks of psychotherapy. Comparative analysis of anxiety scores shows that psychoanalysis therapy has higher anxiety scores (M = 71.33, SD = 10.601) than cognitive behavioral therapy (M = 29.33, SD = 10.328).
While the anxiety scores of the psychoanalysis therapy range from 60 to 90 with a range of 30, cognitive behavioral therapy has anxiety scores that range from 10 to 50 with a range of 40. Moreover, the median for psychoanalysis therapy is 70, while that of the cognitive behavioral therapy is 30. Regarding distribution, psychoanalysis therapy has a kurtosis of -0.791 and skewness of 0.531, whereas cognitive-behavioral therapy has a kurtosis of 0.10 and skewness of 0.149.
In the descriptive statistics, the measures of central tendency and dispersion are important because they depict the distribution of anxiety scores. However, descriptive statistics are not applicable in nominal variables like groups or categories for their mean, mode, median, standard deviation, and variance, for they do not make statistical sense (Huck, 2012). Hence, in this case, the descriptive statistics for the two groups do not make statistical sense.
T-test
To test if the apparent differences in anxiety scores are significant, the appropriated t-test used is independent samples t-test and a two-tailed test at the significance level of 0.05. Howell (2009) argues that when the p-value is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis is false. The t-test results reject the null hypothesis and support the alternative hypothesis as they show that the efficacies of psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioral therapies have significant differences in alleviating anxiety among patients, t(28) = 10.991, p = 0.000.
From the results, one cannot make a conclusion about the immediate and long-term impacts of weekly therapies for a period of six weeks. Wellek (2002) recommends consideration of confounding variables such as demographics in the interpretation of research findings. As research issues related to research design, the study should consider age, gender, and mental conditions during the interpretation of the data.
Conclusion
Comparative analysis of cognitive-behavioral and psychoanalysis therapies indicates that they have different efficacies in treating anxiety. Evidently, cognitive behavioral therapy is more effective therapy than psychoanalysis therapy in the treatment of anxiety among patients.
References
Howell, D. (2009). Statistical Methods for Psychology. New York: Cengage Learning.
Huck, W. (2012). Reading statistics and research (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Rubin, A. (2012). Statistics for Evidence-Based Practice and Evaluation. New York: Cengage Learning.
Wellek, S. (2002). Testing Statistical Hypotheses of Equivalence. New York: CRC Press.